cosmolinguist | Steve Wright (Reply)

Radio 1 and 2 DJ Steve Wright has died. It sounded like it was sudden; everyone is saying how shocked they are, and he was only 69.

In 2005, not long after I first came to the UK, I was stony broke and had no friends and a frequently-broken computer (this was before smartphones, so that meant no internet) and a partner who worked all the time when I couldn't so I was alone in our terrible flat all day.

I did have a radio. So I listened to a lot of Radio 2. I read books and wrote too, but I liked the radio because it makes me feel less alone to hear human voices. (I mostly use podcasts for this now. But also all the years I lived with Andrew I had a radio in the kitchen for when I was cooking or cleaning. And now I use that radio to listen to Radio 1 much of my work day.)

We didn't call them parasocial relationships yet but that's what I had with Steve Wright, who did the afternoon show (including Oldies at 3 or whatever it was called, where he'd play requests, which gave me my first experience of feeling truly Old: at 25 or 26, I heard "What's the Frequency Kenneth" as an "oldie" -- something I could understand now but this would've been in 2007 or 8 (I'm certain of this because I remember exactly where I was: having just left work for the day in the job I had then)).

Thanks for keeping a weird lonely guy company, Steve.